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Our Approach to Licensing
What we do
Put simply, we take a television series or character and look at it/him/her in the same way consumer goods or service companies look at their products - as a brand. We're particularly interested in assessing the potential to stretch that brand into new products - a process often referred to as Brand Licensing. These new formats can take many guises from books and DVDs to magazines, food, clothing, games, mobile applications, giftware, exhibitions and promotions.
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How it begins
Sometimes, it starts with an enterprising brand owner wondering how much new money brand licensing could generate. But mostly it starts with a 'very strong feeling' about a brand's potential which grows and grows until we feel the need to find out who owns it and harangue them until we get a meeting.
However it starts, what follows is the journey toward 'brand licensing'.
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The aim of the exercise
At Metrostar we think of licensing as 'brand nutrition'; developing new products which 'feed back' into the original. Done well, it creates and fitter, happier and healthier brand. Done poorly it creates a rather tired, fat and unappealing one. After all, you are what you eat! So we resist talk of 'cashing in' and 'milking'. We help to create new products which enliven and enhance television brands - and through that, we generate new revenues.
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The process
We often create a brand plan which encapsulates a brands particular attributes and values, and describes its consumer. Then we generate a licensing strategy which details our thoughts about product areas, territories and timescales. For many brands we also help our clients to produce style guides, which show their potential licensees and retailers the exciting potential of their brands, and gives them the guidance they need to develop new product ideas, promotion and point of sale.
The plans we create and the partners we work with are carefully crafted and selected. We talk about clients' needs and each licensing partner needs to 'get' a brand before we recommend them - and we always favour product quality. The right licence in our view is the one which builds the brand, not the one which offers the short-term commercial return.
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The secret of our success
As well as having some wonderful brands in our portfolio, we are extremely proactive, very creative and maddeningly persistent. We believe passionately in our brands' potential and we just go on (. . . and on and on) at licensees relentlessly (but nicely!) until they understand it too.
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The fruits of our labours
Metrostar has managed and brokered deals for clients in a broad range of categories such as apparel, accessories, collectibles, books, dvds, board games, video games, mobile games, iphone apps, online gaming, stationery, greetings cards, toys, posters, ceramics, novelty gifts, calendars and events.
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